Potato chips produced by frying thin potato slices in high-temperature oil have a unique crispy texture and a savory flavor. However, fried potato chips have a high oil content that reaches about 40% of the product weight, and therefore have a very high calorie content. In response to recent health trends, non-fried potato chips are commercially available which are produced without frying in oil and therefore have a low oil content. Some methods for producing such non-fried potato chips have been proposed (see Patent Documents 1 to 7).
However, non-fried potato chips produced by these conventional techniques do not have a light and crispy texture like fried potato chips but have a crunchy texture or a texture like thin paper, and are therefore not readily melted in the mouth. When kneaded dough is used as a raw material as in the case of fabricated potato chips, the conventional production methods can produce reasonable quality non-fried potato chips. However, particularly in the case of non-fried potato chips produced by directly using raw potato slices, the conventional techniques cannot achieve a crispy texture like fried potato chips.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-56-39760
Patent Document 2: JP-W-6-508518
Patent Document 3: JP-W-2000-508887
Patent Document 4: JP-A-2006-191871
Patent Document 5: Japanese Utility Model No. 3160399
Patent Document 6: JP-A-2005-245389
Patent Document 7: JP-W-2001-510686